The Italian's One-Night Love-Child. CATHY WILLIAMS

and truly taken on a scenic route up a very winding garden path.

      It had taken him a mere week to track down the address of one Bethany Maguire, and a couple more had passed as he sat on the information, telling himself to let it go before finally realising that he wouldn’t rest until he had confronted the woman and given voice to his consuming rage.

      He had no idea what he hoped to gain by confronting her and it went absolutely and utterly against the grain of the person he was, a man who had always been able to keep his emotions in check with ease, a man who prided himself on his ferocious self-control. A man, it had to be said, who had never found himself in the position of being left high and dry by any woman or, for that matter, being told barefaced lies and gullibly eating them up.

      Without the engine running, it was beginning to get cold in the car and the January light was beginning to fade. Give it ten more minutes and the line of picturesque thatched houses that jostled for space along the broad road with colourfully painted cottages and shop fronts would fade into an indistinct grey blur. There was still time, he knew, to drive right back to the hotel, grab a meal and head back to London first thing in the morning. On the other hand, would that put paid to the bitter, toxic knot that sat in the pit of his stomach like a tumour?

      He stepped out of the car and began walking along the pavement, cursorily taking in the fairy tale village setting. Not to his taste. The place looked as though it had been designed by a kid who had been given a blank canvas and told to go mad. He almost expected to bump into a gingerbread house at any moment.

      The house at the end of the road was no exception. The trees were bare of leaves and the front garden lacked colour, but he imagined that in summer it would be filled with all the stereotypical stuff straight out of a children’s book. Apple trees out back, flowers running rampant everywhere, the prerequisite stone wall over which neighbours would chat while, presumably, hanging out their washing and whistling a merry tune. He scowled and banked down the rise of bile in his throat as he ignored the doorbell to bang heavily on the front door instead.

      Bethany, in the middle of foraging in the fridge for ingredients to make a meal for her parents which she had enthusiastically promised three hours earlier, cursed under her breath because she had left everything to the absolute last minute and couldn’t afford to take time out for a chat. Having spent the past two years in London, she had forgotten how life worked in the small village where she had lived all her life. People stopped by. They chatted. They drank interminable cups of tea. It had been worse in the first couple of months after she had arrived back but, even now, old neighbours would drop in and would be offended if she didn’t sit and chat over tea and biscuits.

      She wondered if she could pretend to be out, perhaps duck down under the kitchen table and wait until the coast was clear, but then dismissed the idea because half the village would know that her parents were at the village fund-raiser and would also know that she had skipped it because she had felt ill that morning. That was just life around here, and she was going to have to make the best of it for the foreseeable future.

      She dumped her handful of random ingredients on the kitchen counter and raced to the front door to intercept another bang.

      In her head, she played over the possibilities of who it could be. Several of her old school friends, ones who had never left the little village in which they had grown up, who had settled down at ridiculously young ages to marry and have families, had looked her up. She had been grateful for their support and had tried very hard not to feel hemmed in and claustrophobic. She missed Shania and Melanie, who had both returned to their respective lives in Dublin after a two week family break over Christmas. Perhaps it was old Mrs Kelly a few houses along, who had become a frequent visitor and was prone to extended visits.

      Bethany stifled a groan of near despair as she pulled open the front door and then stared at her visitor in frozen, nauseating disbelief.

      She blinked, thinking that she must be hallucinating, but when she opened her eyes he was still there and this was no crazy illusion.

      ‘You!’ she squeaked in a high-pitched voice which she hardly recognised as her own. ‘What are you doing here?’ She clutched her mouth and swayed.

      ‘No way are you going to faint on me,’ Cristiano said through gritted teeth. He insinuated his foot over the threshold and pushed the door open wide, letting himself in while she was still gasping in shock and as pliable as a rag doll. Her eyes were as wide as saucers and she looked as though she was on the verge of collapse. Good.

      Bethany heard the slam of the front door as he closed it and it resonated with the sound of the executioner’s blade. She was busy trying to get her thoughts together but the sight of him, all six foot two of cold aggression towering in the hallway, had slowed her thought processes down to an unhelpful standstill.

      ‘Cristiano,’ she finally threaded unevenly. ‘What a surprise.’ Only the wall, against which she had pressed herself, was keeping her from sinking to the ground in an unlovely heap.

      ‘Life is full of them. As I’ve discovered for myself, firsthand.’

      ‘What are you doing here?’ she stammered, choosing not to pursue that particular avenue of conversation.

      ‘Oh, I was just driving by and I thought I’d take time out to pass the time of day with you…Amelia. But it’s not Amelia, is it, Bethany?’

      ‘I feel faint. I honestly do.’ She put her hand to her head and took a few deep breaths. ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’